With the advent of the electronic postage meters, it has become possible to offer meter customers the feature of remotely adding postage credit (remote setting) to the postage meter. This feature enables the customer to more readily and conveniently remotely set the amount of postage in the meter. Extensive procedures and controls are used to insure that the postage amount is remotely set only when authorized. For example, the customer is usually required to enter a long code that varies each time the meter is remotely set. However, there may be a time delay between the time customer first initiates the process of obtaining the remote setting code and the time the customer receives the remote setting code. In addition, the customer may not be able to remotely set the meter due to a low customer account balance.